a personal-public notebook about human development(s) ... by michaela raab

Thursday, 17 September 2009

Women's Em_ent or EmPOWERment?

Listen to this enlightening podcast by Prof. Andrea Cornwall on what the mainstream development industry has done to women's empowerment- and how you can go about it differently.A brief written summary is available on this IDS page. Do click at the bottom of that page to download the half-hour speech: I find it riveting! After some 35 minutes, you'll hear a short documentary film soundtrack in Arabic (no sub-titles in the audio file...), followed by questions and answers (in English again).Cornwall explains that empowerment is not about "giving that woman a chicken" - "empowerment light" which leaves men, or the society as a whole, completely out of the picture. Empowerment as shifting the boundaries of the possible is what we should be after - supporting women to find power so as to engage differently within their societies. Prof. Cornwall quotes some compelling examples.

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About me

I am a consultant with 28 years of experience in development - in particular, monitoring & evaluation, facilitation, training and applied research with a range of organisations and in many places around the world. I live in Berlin and work in several languages.This blog is a free time venture - so please bear with typos and occasional long waits between the posts. Scroll down if wish to be alerted by email when new posts come up. Comments are most welcome.

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This is my personal blog, which I use to share thoughts, informations and news, based on my personal knowledge and perceptions. I do my best to ensure accuracy and truthfulness but cannot be held legally responsible for any content on this site, which is meant for informal exchange only. As to the links offered here: the responsibility for content on these links remains with those who run the respective sites.